Senate Bill 102 criminalizes false elector slates and adds new false-instrument offense; supporters, opponents debate scope

Senator Skip Daley (Senate District 13) presented Senate Bill 102 as a response to the false‑elector schemes alleged in past presidential contests and as a measure the governor characterized previously as addressing a “terrible crime.” The bill makes it a criminal offense to create, serve, or conspire to create or serve on a false slate of presidential electors, authorizes the Secretary of State to investigate complaints and subpoena witnesses, and imposes penalties including a possible one- to four‑year sentence and fines up to $5,000 as presented to the committee.

Daley told the committee the bill was revised from a prior session to reduce the criminal penalty and remove a broad employment ban; he said the measure adds a separate offense for submitting a false instrument with intent to defraud and includes a path for the Secretary of State to investigate and refer matters to the attorney general for prosecution. “The people that were engaged in this scheme…were not engaged in the democratic process. They were trying to subvert the democratic process,” the sponsor said.

Supporters described the bill as necessary to deter disinformation and bad actors. Carrie Dermott, Nevada state director of All Voting is Local Action, said the bill “would establish clear legal guardrails and consequences” and asked the committee for its support; Shelby Swartz of Battle Born Progress called the measure “a significant step toward fortifying our democracy against the corrosive effects of disinformation.”

Opponents — including representatives of county and city clerks, party officials and several public commenters — argued the bill’s language is vague and its penalties could chill lawful exercise of elector duties and lawful challenges to election results. Barney Wadley, speaking for the Nevada Republican Party, warned the committee that prosecution threats “could chill future presidential electors from performing their constitutional duties under the Twelfth Amendment and 3 United States Code sections 7 to 9,” and cited historical examples where alternate slates were cast as a contingency. Janine Hanson and other commenters called the penalties “extraordinary and extreme” and said the measure could conflict with federal processes or the state constitution.

The committee heard technical and constitutional objections, including concerns about prosecutorial discretion, the bill’s effect on free speech and the lack of a restoration pathway for officeholding rights in some parts of the draft. No committee vote on final passage was recorded; Senator Daley said he had reduced penalties in response to the governor's veto message from a prior session and intends continued refinement of the bill.